Return

Hello Again! As you can tell, I’ve returned from my week of retreat at Wisdom House, located in the foothills of the Berkshires in Connecticut. Can you sense my retreat glow through the computer?? It was a great week – an amazing opportunity to look back at where I’ve been and ahead to the next steps of the journey.

This was my second year at Wisdom House, and if it weren’t 3,000 miles away from where I’ll be living, next year I’d probably come back. It is a place of deep peace. I also had the same director again this year, a gentle and wise woman who, as you might guess, is a Daughter of Wisdom. The week was so great in no small part due to my daily conversations with her.

And then … there is the matter of the trees! I don’t know what Wisdom House is like the rest of the year, but towards the end of August the skies are blue, the weather warm (but not too hot), and the trees are a sea of green. I spent a lot of time with the trees, especially the Quaking Aspen.

Sadly, the Quaking Aspen are not very photogenic (something I have in common with them). You see, it’s not that they’re especially beautiful, but that they dance in the wind and glimmer in the sun! I tried to take a picture of them last year, to no avail. I also tried to draw them, but again no luck – a combination of my artistic (in)ability and their fluid nature. So this year, I took a quick little video which doesn’t quite give you the full impression but gives you an idea:

I also brought some poetry along with me this year, and found this poem by Mary Oliver. She captures what my drawings, pictures and video cannot, even if she wasn’t talking about my Quaking Aspen!

When I Am Among the Trees
by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”